2.26.2011

Hey there, audience of nobody! So I did a "how to fix Silent Hill" thing a while back, which was riddled with typos (probably because I was so engrossed in it I was only half paying attention), but I ended it by saying I was gonna post the possibilities for an Eddie Dombrowski game and a third, new idea I had that seemed rather obvious yet no one has used for a SH game before. Fat chance I ever get back around to that.

So THIS idea is even more rickety. The thing is Pokemon is an unrecognizable clusterfuck of stupidity nowadays. Pokemon happened, and it had a sequel, but after that shit went to hell and it's been hard to get back into it. There is one single unifying mistake that keeps me from playing any pokemon game post-Gold/Silver, but it's only one of a gazillion.

Thing is, though, pokemon is an extremely simple formula, and as such it is easy to get right as well as easy to twist the formula around. This post will cover what the problems are, how to fix them, and at least one or two redesign/redux pokemon. Maybe even the first four if there's time.

from DeviantArt I guess. SH+Pokemon is a terrible idea, by the way.

SECTION I: Identifying the problem

First things first, the huge glaring plot hole that keeps me up and night: THERE ARE ONLY 256 POKEMON! Where the fuck did this blue furry that's a clone-but-worse of Mewtwo come from and more importantly, how do we kill it?

Obviously the stars of pokemon are the mon themselves, so this one is impossible to ignore, and why are so many people okay with just abrubtly adding 400+ pokemon with no explanation whatsoever? Where did they come from? How can they exist? Where were they for the first two games and whycome nobody noticed them before?

Because some are okay with this, I feel like I need to qualify this and explain why there are only 256 pokemon. It's sad that I do, sure, but here we go:

Think back to the first pokemon game. How many pokemon were there? Professor Oak would tell you assertively in his "i'm older than you so you have to believe me" tone that there are EXACTLY 150 pokemon. No more, no less. Realize that this means he knows all about Mewtwo at the beginning of the game, and fully excepts it's reality. Realize this MUST mean he knows for a fact that Mew, #151, exists as well and is not just a pokemon cryptid. So right away he either means Mew, or is lying. Since the guy wrote the fucking pokedex himself, and numbers Mewtwo before Mew, he must be lying.

And remember how thick the lies were about Mew? You couldn't find any information on him from official channels at all. He was like a ghost, by contrast Missingno. was a complete unknown at this time.It was at least a year later before Nintendo finally admitted Mew's existence... even though you can't really deny it since Mewtwo requires Mew to exist.

But it didn't stop there did it? If Mew was #151, then what the hell was that thing in the first episode of the cartoon? It wasn't Moltres, and when Ash asked Oak about it, he flat out denied the possibility that the creature was ever real, and dismissed Ash's story entirely. That pokemon cryptid, when it was numbered, ended up as #250 not #152.

But there were also assertations that we "didn't really know how many species of pokemon there are." With Mew, Ho-oh, and Missingno., this was not surprising to hear. And when leaked images of G/S pokemon appeared, and Togepi, Slowking, Donphan, Pikabl... I mean Marill, and others began to appear in cards and the cartoon, it wasn't quite as surprising. The "pokegods" may have been fiction, but all myths have some basis in fact, and what once were the Giant Squids and Okapis of the world began to be found and acknowledged as real pokemon.

Now about pokemon genetics: Mew, the "all-embryo" pokemon, is a pokemon with all bases turned "on." Or Mew is the original pokemon genetically, whose dna (or whatever) contains all pokemon's information flipped on. He is the ur example. On the other hand, Missingno., number 000, is a pokemon severly lacking in genetic information, presumably with all bases turned "off."

That sounds like a sloppy explanation, so let me explain it this way: Missingno. is 00, Mew is FF. Now, Mew's actual hex address was never FF, but it gets the point across. Get it? So pokemon have a set number of genetic variations, or there is a finite number of possible pokemon that can be created from a limited and-not-prone-to-mutation poke-genes. They don't evolve like earthlings or Digimon, so they can't change the number of variations.

But what is that set number? Well, considering nobody ever said anything about there still being undiscovered pokemon after G/S, we must assume that at that time all possible pokemon had been discovered. Not surprising, since the level of technology in the pokemon world would easily allow scientists to alter the poke-genetics of a ditto or something to artificially simulate every possible pokemon in Mew's genes. So there are 252 pokemon, it's done.

So then this new game comes out and says, with no cryptozoology or mythology to back it up, "oh look, there's like 100 more fucking pokemon that no one has ever heard of until right this second and they're RIGHT OVER THAT HILL!"

Bullshit. You don't get to do that. Play by your own rules, and quit making shit up. Now, remember that example I gave about comparing poke-genetics to their hex addresses? So there are 256 possible pokemon in the original games, with one slot used for and egg and one being #000. In G/S, that leaves three Missingno. clones (instead of 104 in R/B). In fact, they were almost exactly the sameas G/S Missingno., so it would be wise to assume that there could still be four (or three depending on how you interpret the egg) pokemon that scientists have yet to artificially create yet. Hence, we stick to the original hexidecimal system and get 256 pokemon counting 0, going from #000 to #255.

Simply put, the in-game mythology of the series directly opposes any pokemon with a higher number than 255 existing.

Another thing: Missingno. sucks now. He's my favorite pokemon of all time and without him there's absolutely no reason to play.

Another thing: Pokemon is an rpg. Kinda a minor complaint since it didn't make the first games less enjoyable, but it's an awful genre is all. Pokemon are in Smash Bros., so why can't we do something fun to play? It'd be nice, but in truth pokemon is one of the handful of rpg's you can actually sit through (about 5 in all).

Also: What's with the versions? Why the hell would I buy a game twice? Memory limitations my ass, you can obviously fit information for all the pokemon in the cart, so why are the encounters fucked up? Quit money grubbing and just make a completed game. And while I'm on that, put it on an actual console. I don't want to squint to play a damn game.

SECTION II: Some Advice

So really the main problem is the number of pokemon. At first it seems like you can just say "well delete the other ones" and get on with it... but hold on. If we go with the hexidecimal system there are still three spots left. I know Leafeon was in some game in an official capacity, and he's been a pokegod from the beginning. So it would make sense that Charcolt, Sapusaur, and Rainer be included as well. Might as well stick Mewthree in there.But that brings it to #256, or 257 total pokemon...

Well, it is possible to avert the number if we are creative and play by the rules that pokemon has already set for us, something Nintendo never bothered to do. Case(s) in point: Porygon, Porygon 2, Mewtwo, and the fossil pokemon.

Both Porygons and Mewtwo are artificially created, meaning they don't need to, nay, they CAN'T be contained within the genetic material of Mew, they are manmade aberrations. Mewtwo is even supposed to be a clone of Mew, so we can go so far as to say it has the same genes as Mew but is interpreted differently.

Let's take a page from Final Wars and call this human folly the "M" base. Porygon could be 0M, Porygon 2 is 2M, and Mewtwo is M2, just for fun. Adding this to the naturally occuring poke-bases makes 17. To calculate how many species of pokemon are possible with the expanded natural and artificial genome, just square it, and we get 289, that's still including #000, so up to #288. Further, there is a "pokemon" called Porygon Z which is evolved from Porygon 2 in one of those newer games, but with just a little imagination and if we bother to justify his existence, he now fits in perfectly with the rest of the cast! Even better, it allows more space for artificial, man-made pokemon.

Now the fossils: as stated before, poke-genetics are static, Mew is everything any pokemon could ever be, and pokemon do not evolve. So, how does that explain fossil pokemon? We can't throw everything out the window because not only does the evidence weigh heavily against pokemon actually evolving, but Mew can still transform into Kabuto, presumably the oldest of the fossils, so Kabuto MUST fit in somehow.

But Mew can transform into Porygon too, right? Sure, but Porygon is still created from poke-genetics, and like Mewtwo, we should assume that the "M" base stands for metaphorical, because I'm trying to explain poke-genetics in hexidecimal, and Mewtwo IS a clone.

So whatever the alteration is, Mew can duplicate it even with non-altered pokemon dna. If this is the case, might there be other, completely natural bases that have simply disappeared over time? The thought is a little scary once you realize pokemon cannot increase their biological diversity over time, and will eventually boil down to one species before going extinct forever, but it is a fair assumption. An "extinct" base is completely fair game too, since they "we would have found them by now" is no longer an excuse, although the idea of living relic poke-cryptids is exciting, and I've always kinda thought Tyranitar was one such pokemon... no basis for that, I just always considered him the official version of "Tyranticus" or whatever that pokegod's name was.

So, let's add another base that was lost to time in all pokemon other than Mew, and call it "P" for prehistoric. That brings the total number of pokemon up to 324, or from #000 to #323.

By simply taking the game's own explanation for pokemon's existence and scrutinizing the pokemon that are already there before all the ass-pulling and shark-jumping and using the power of our imaginations, we have expanded the number of possible pokemon from 252 to 324! Thats 68 pokemon that make sense in the in-game universe!

It's that easy, and we haven't even gotten darker and edgier yet.

SECTION III: Darker and Edgier for the 90's

by Canyx or something like that. It's Tyranitar if you couldn't tell.

The pokemon themselves are a hodgepodge of mismatched origins, dumbed down awesomeness and loose ends that are ignored. For instance, did you know Butterfree and Venomoth's designs are backwards? Really? Then why the hell does Butterfree look exactly like a Venonat, and Venomoth look like a Metapod? Ever stop to think about why Kangaskhan's child, who is clearly different from Kangaskhan proper and since going through a metamorphosis counts as a new species isn't accounted for? Well, who was Cubone's mother? The first and second games are full of this sort of thing.

But the games continue to stagnate and wither when there are obviously mistakes and a lot of potential that is just being ignored. This is sad, and for this hypothetical "fixed" game, somebody seriously needs to stop fucking around and update the now decade old pokemon. They gave Rodan three horns and a beam weapon in 1993, so why the hell doesn't pokemon even try?

That said, edgier for edgier's sake is retarded, and Todd McFarlane is a hack. What we need is just a simple redesign. Jigglypuff should still be cute, but Dragonite should look like an actual dragon, is what I'm saying.

So I lied. There is one other thing I want to talk about other than the actual redesigns, but I will get to both next time (assuming there is one). That will be fixing the settings and at least Missingno.

The Who of What, Now?

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